"Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling, and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life," says Mark Zuckerberg. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

October 4, 2012

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Early Thursday, Facebook announced it had reached the 1 billion user mark, a mere eight years after the wildly popular social network launched. The milestone was actually reached on Sept. 14, but founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg waited until this morning to announce the achievement on NBC's Today. (Watch the video below.) "Thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you," Zuckerberg wrote later. "Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling, and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life." Here, a look at the historic milestone, by the numbers:

2Countries that have more citizens than Facebook has users (China and India)

824 millionThe world's population in 1750

1,000Engineers working on Facebook. That works out to 1 million users per engineer

1.13 trillion"Likes" since the Facebook feature launched in February 2009

140.3 billionFriend connections

219 billionPhotos uploaded

17 billionLocation-tagged posts, including check-ins

62.6 millionSongs played using Facebook-compatible music apps like Spotify

210,000Years of music played on Facebook

22Average age of someone who joins Facebook

500 millionTwitter users worldwide

845 millionFacebook users when the company first filed for its initial public offering in February

500 millionFacebook users two years ago

50 millionFacebook users five years ago

25 millionFacebook users six years ago

600 millionPeople who use Facebook on their mobile phones, up 48 million from June. That's a "key metric" for the company looking forward, says Zack Whittaker at CNET, as people in developing countries use their phones as their primary internet connection.